This invention relates to an apparatus for cleaning material transporting rollers and in particular to such a device which does not require that the rollers be removed from the device they are associated with.
In many industrial processes material being processed is transported on a series of side-by-side rollers. In some of these applications the material that is being processed leaves a deposit on the rollers which must periodically be removed or it will disfigure the material. This situation occurs, for example, with glass tempering furnaces where the glass must be transported on extremely smooth ceramic rollers since the glass is heated during the tempering process to where it is easily marked by any irregularities on the rollers. Since the glass is cut and its edges are ground smooth prior to tempering, glass shavings are created and they often are carried by the glass onto the rollers. At the high tempering temperature these shavings become fused to the rollers and must be removed periodically.
Heretofore these rollers were cleaned by removing them from the tempering furnace and mounting them on a remote cleaning apparatus. This not only required allowing the furnace to cool substantially to room temperature but was a slow and expensive procedure. While devices have been developed which clean rollers of this type in place, they all have shortcomings which have prevented their being widely used.
Some of these cleaning devices, such as shown in Dickinson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,481,727, are permanently or semi-permanently attached to a pair of rollers. Since a tempering furnace has a large number of rollers, the use of cleaning apparatus of this type would be quite expensive.
Alternately some of the prior art devices, such as that shown in Banfield, U.S. Pat. No. 1,741,494, clean all of the rollers at one time. Such a device is expensive to make, and, if used on a machine having a large number of rollers would be quite heavy and difficult to use.
Bousquet et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,165,865 discloses a cleaning apparatus which is capable of being moved from roller to roller, however, it is designed for permanent installation on one roller and moving it would be difficult. Thus it is not feasible to use the Bousquet et al. device to clean a large number of rollers, such as is necessary with a tempering furnace.
While King et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,042,364, discloses a roller cleaning apparatus which can be moved easily from roller to roller, it is designed to operate in a track which is unique to the particular device on which it is designed to be used. Thus, the roller cleaner of King et al. cannot be used to clean rollers in the other devices and has extremely limited use.
None of the prior art roller cleaners can be used to clean the rollers of a multiple roller device easily and inexpensively while the rollers remain in the device. Accordingly, none of them are useful in cleaning the rollers in existing glass tempering furnaces and other similar devices.
The present invention overcomes the difficulty of the prior art by providing a portable frame which can easily be moved from roller to roller by the user. Located at one end of the frame are a pair of caster mounted wheels which have a diameter which causes them to contact adjacent rollers they are placed between. The castors are interconnected by a tie-rod to rotate together between a right-hand orientation and a left-hand orientation. When the casters are in their right-hand orientation the wheels will cause the frame to translate across the rollers toward the right when the rollers are rotated, and when the casters are in their left-hand orientation the frame will translate across the rollers toward the left.
The tie-rod is biased by a spring to normally place the casters in their right-hand orientation. However, a latch mechanism locks the casters in their left-hand orientation when they are moved there manually. The latch mechanism is arranged such that when the apparatus has completely traversed across the rollers toward the left a release element will strike the support which carries the rollers and release the latch. When this happens the spring will return the casters to their right-hand orientation and the frame will reverse its direction and move back across the rollers toward the right.
Located at the other end of the frame is an elongate hone which rests on one of the rollers when the wheels are placed between another pair of rollers. The front crossbar of the frame, which carries the casters, can be located at various locations along the frame side rails in order to permit the distance between the wheels and the hone to be adjusted to accommodate different roller separations. A ballast plate is removably attached to the side rails adjacent to the hone in order to provide the weight necessary for the hone to work. The ballast plate is arranged for easy replacement so that heavier or lighter ballast plates can be used depending on the grit of the hone and how much cleaning action is required.
The front crossbar, the ballast plate, and the hone all are attached to the side rails in a manner which permits a small amount of movement between them. This allows the wheels and hone to remain in contact with the rollers even if the rollers are not perfectly flat or their axes are not totally parallel.
Mounted on the frame, over the top of the wheels, is a tank which carries water which is used to wash the rollers while they are being cleaned. The tank is connected to a distribution tube having holes in its lower surface through a hose having a shut-off valve located in it. The distribution tube extends across the entire extent of the hone and is located adjacent to it. Since the water tank is located above the wheels it provides the weight necessary for the wheels to cause the apparatus to translate along the rollers and not to ride out of them.
The foregoing and other objectives, features and advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood upon consideration of the following detailed description of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.